New Ways of Being Church

A Conversation on the Need for New Ways of being Church

For the benefit of any who come in at this point the story so far is ….

Simon posted an article on this topic on facebook…

I replied that it was like moving deck chairs on a sinking ship – churches first needed to return to lively faith in Jesus.

Simon replied that we should get off the ship.

Touche! When I thought about it I had got off the ship … or rather they had cast me adrift on a longboat - glad to be rid of a tiresome priest!

My thoughts:

OK I stopped going to the local Anglican churches because I always came home so angry that they were preaching UNbelief! Then I started going to my younger daughter Jenny's church, which is a local congregation of a micro-denomination. They have members of the congregation preach – and they do preach the true gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ and obedience to His commands. But I have to admit that I do miss the liturgy, and I do miss the old hymns (well the better ones anyway)

So yes I did get off the ship, and that is is one solution that works, but is it the only solution, or indeed one that works for everyone?

Now my great grand parents on one side were converted through the Methodist preachers who were the human agents of a revival that swept the country in the late 1800's. Then my grandparents were converted by Seventh Day Adventist evangelists. We were all brought up in that church but all ended up Anglicans.

My point is that every generation needs to be converted afresh. And although the SDA's may be doing fine as a church for all I know, the Methodist church has gone from being on the forefront of the work of the Gospel to being a rotting spiritual corpse in just three generations!

So taking to the lifeboats may be a practical solution – but one still has to watch that they in turn don't spring a leak.

My own thoughts about the Anglican church are that it is spiritually like Israel in the time of Ahab and Jezebel. There are still faithful ministers and people – just as God told Elijah that there were “seven thousand in Israel that have not bowed the knee to Baal”. But when the revival we pray for comes, by and large the new believers need to be nurtured away from it – and away from most mainline denominations – likely in house-churches, or internet link-ups, or other means of utilising modern technology. (So I guess I am now agreeing with the writer of that article about the usefulness of technology and of new ways of being church !!!)

But the ancient foundations of the Anglican church are sound. It may be better to get rid of the rubbish and repair it rather than build a new “institution” - and institutions are just a sociological necessity for maintaining important activities among humans. Because as the Methodists illustrate one can put a lot of energy into a new institutional church for it to all turn to dust in just a few generations!

My expectation is that once the new believers in the revival have grown strong in the Faith, they can flood back to (in this instance) the Anglican churches and join the faithful few who have hunkered down there in clearing out the rubbish – maybe converting the apostates – and making it into a faithful church … at least for their generation!

I'd be interested in any thoughts on this.